Heroes of Tomorrow
by Maelstrom J
Summary: The DC Multiverse is full of irregularities between each universe. Some have a Russian Superman. Others a lack of any heroes. But some fall closer to Earth Prime, the one we know and treasure. Welcome to Earth 1.6. Here new villains arise and the call is heard, spurring the creation of new heroes. But are they up to the task? Are they ready to become the Heroes of Tomorrow?


**I've been reading Fanfiction for about 2 years now and I've had dozens of ideas for stories. At last I'm satisfied with one enough to put it to ink (metaphorically of course). If you spot any errors please let me know so I can fix them. That said enjoy the story!**

 **P.S. All things recognizably canon (characters, objects, companies, ect) belong to their respective creators and DC Comics**

 **P.P.S If you recognize a characters outlook from deviantart then there's a good chance that's where I got the idea from so respect to those artists if you recognize something of yours.**

 **P.P.P.S. I'm still searching for cover art for this story so if you find or have something great I'd love to see it. Now on with the show!**

Heroes of Tomorrow

Chapter 1

Ice and snow were whipped into frenzy by the driving wind. Huddled under a heavy coat and ski goggles, the WayneTech security guard made his way along the chain-link fence.

"Of all the nights to be called in..." He glanced around, switching the goggles to night vision. In the green light, shadows were stripped away. He turned from the hulking factory towards the forest that bordered the compound. As he was about to turn away something had flickered.

A boy in battered jeans and a jacket stumbled out of the pines, dragging his left foot and his arm limp by his side. Six feet from the forest's edge, he collapsed all as a dull groan came through a lull in the wind. The man rushed over, pulling out his radio.

"Hey Forrester, I've got a kid here, he just wandered out of the woods on the north side! Get me an ambulance and alert the BCH we've got a new patient for 'em

"Two broken ribs, a fractured left fibula, a dislocated right shoulder, and multiple punctures along the right forearm. This kid's been through hell and back."

The two doctors stood outside the boy's room, questions ricocheting inside their heads. The speaker, a man in his late fifties with glasses and black hair, glanced down at the other doctor, a rather short woman with curly black hair. She held a tablet where she had pulled up different profiles from the missing persons list.

"Any luck narrowing down who this kid is, Jean?" He inquired.

"Nothing yet, it seems he hit puberty while he was missing so it's hard to factor in the changes. No prints on record and minimal corrective dental work so that route's off. Guess we've gotta go by appearances. Eventually we should still get- A-ha, got him!" The two turned away from his room and walked down the hallway.

"He's William Harrison Ford, age 18, born March 13, 1997. He went missing after an avalanche took out an archeological excavation he was at; his father was one of the few survivors. He's in the Philippines on another dig so it might be a while before we can reach him. As soon as he wakes up we'll see how this all happened."

The man nodded, a rather grim expression on his facial features, "If he wakes up."

Three days later and Will still hadn't awoken. The doctors were attributing it to severe dehydration and malnutrition and were giving the boy plenty of fluids and nutrients via IV. Late at night, a young nurse, new to the hospital, was checking up on the boy. Engrossed in a texting session with her boyfriend, the woman was oblivious to the lowering temperatures. Turning down the hall, her feet shot out from under her. Dazed, the nurse pulled herself from the floor and snatched up her phone, checking for any damage.

She was about to shout at whoever dumped water all over the floor when her words caught in her throat and her, eyes went wide.

Ice covered every surface, encasing a janitor's cart, fire extinguishers, lights, and rising from all surfaces in spikes like fangs. She carefully walked across the slippery surface, carefully placing every foot so she wouldn't go down again. After some time, she made it to the room she was supposed to go to into. Its windows were coated in an almost beautiful display of curling ice crystals which served to block all sight into the room.

She tried the door and found it unlocked and opened it with surprising ease. She peered around the corner and stopped short. The boy was straight as a board, arms to the sides. If this alone wasn't strange enough, bright blue mist trailed from his hands, crawling across the ground like so many serpents. As she took a hesitant step into the room, his eyes shot open and the temperature dropped like a stone. A brilliant blue glow was set in each unseeing eye as ice crept up the screaming woman's legs, encasing her and freezing her in the same position she would be found in the next day.

Blackthorn Multinational, one of many places that took the name of a bush, was the first to be called. The company specialized in treating, and if need be, containing, the growing number of metahumans and superpowered individuals across the globe. At the hospital, two of their workers came in dressed in full armor. Reminiscent of Mr. Freeze, they were designed to protect the wearer from extremely low temperatures. After a few hurried words with the doctors, the men put down their faceplates and walked down that hallway followed by a floating pod. Ten minutes later, the two walked out followed by the floating pod that now contained the still unconscious boy. One stopped and waved the other on with the pod. The man pulled off his helmet to reveal a younger man in his late twenties.

He spoke to the male doctor that had been assigned to Will, "Don't worry, Mack. We'll make sure he's taken care of. In the meantime, expect some STAR egg heads later. They're bringing some tech to sort out that nurse of yours."

"Thanks Justin, tell Larissa I said hello."

With a nod, the two men packed the pod into the back of their van, the doctor looked back at the ward where Will had lain, peacefully, only hours ago.

"Five in a month... What on earth is happening?"

Dark, hot, and stifling even, and then a voice cut through the darkness.

At first it was quiet, "My mom's mentioned you before, some sort of an accident..." It trailed off then came back, now obviously directed at me.

"Hey guy! I know you're awake so come on, I'm bored!" It was feminine, probably younger than me by a few years.

"Dude, I know you're awake, your brain monitor is showing you're wide awake and I can practically hear you thinking." It had a strange metallic sound to it, like the ring from a sheet of metal.

I opened my eyes only to see the dull white ceiling tiles that seem to inhabit every public building ever made. I felt a pinch in my arm as I absentmindedly moved it and looked down to see an IV dug into the crook of my elbow. I glanced up at the rest of the room and saw the source of the voice. It took a second to process.

A tall, glass cylinder rose from the floor in place of the bed on my right. The bottom eight inches or so were filled with shiny liquid metal that didn't stop shifting. Then the strangest part, rising from the center was the torso of a teenage girl with long hair half-pulled into a pony tail. She was entirely made of the same metal that filled the tank right down to her hair and oddly enough, her clothes.

She blinked bright blue eyes, "Glad to see you up. I was wondering if you were going to be as entertaining as Jules when she came in."

I blinked. My brain sluggish as I tried to process what she'd said. "Where-?" My voice croaked out, raspy from disuse.

"Where are you?" I nodded, not trusting myself to say more.

"Welcome to Blackthorn Multinational. It's like some sort of place that's supposed to help people like you and me. You came in about three days ago and they had to slap those cuffs on you to keep you from freezing us all solid."

I glanced down at my hands, only now realizing that they were covered in metal bracers with a clear orb around my hands. Inside, it was like watching a miniature blizzard. Seeing that, I realized that that was the only part of me that felt normal, like my hands were free but the rest of me was under a pile of blankets.

I tried again. "Why am I... here?"

"That's an easy one. You froze a hospital ward solid."

She said it so a-matter-of-factly that I just stared. "I... What?"

She giggled, "You turned a bunch of hospital rooms into a winter wonderland and the patients into human popsicles all while knocked out unconscious!" Now she sounded almost impressed.

I fell back onto my bed and stared at the stark, boring ceiling. "I froze people?" I thought back and all I really remembered was stumbling out of the woods and seeing some guy before blacking out.

I turned back to the metal girl, "You clearly know who I am, so now, who are you?"

She grinned which made her face turn into a sort of mirror. "I'm glad you finally asked, Will. Ashley Marie Sanders, at your service. Or rather whatever use I can be in this jar. And I'm not the only one here you know."

I finally looked over the rest of the room. A tall boy with longish dark, hair, brown eyes and the look you'd usually attribute to a surfer, lay in one bed, listening to music on an iPod. Power inhibitors were clasped onto both wrists and around his neck. A girl and boy both pale and with straight, raven hair, sat on another bed playing chess. They looked alike enough to be twins and I stared as the chess pieces seemed to float to the next square. The final occupant was girl a few years older than me with wavy, dirty blonde hair and looked like she belonged in a fashion magazine not a hospital ward. She had similar bracers to me but they didn't have the see-through part on the end. All of us were garbed in the same grey pants and tee shirt.

"What, did all of us develops powers overnight?"

The boy chuckled, "Not quite. I've been here two weeks and the twins over there, even longer. You and blondie on the other hand, both came in today, she on the other hand was conscious and hadn't been dragged out of the woods."

I glanced at the girl then my eyes trailed over the others, "So, what are you in for?"

The guy laughed, "Well, let's start the meet and greet then, shall we? I'm Kyle Crest. I kind of shook apart my dad's apartment and almost caused an earthquake before these B.M. guys got there. I've got some sort of ability to control kinetic energy, although 'control' is a loose term."

He turned to the blonde girl, "Come on Jules, you can't spend your entire time here silent."

She sat up slowly and sighed. "I'm Julia Froid, although the first name's kind of a given as there's only so many names that 'Jules' is a nickname for."

She shuddered a bit before continuing, "I froze my house and got my family trapped in ice." She was definitely taking this harder than I was. Then again, I had a huge gap in my memory after the collapse so just one more potential disaster to add to my roster. I turned to the side as groan rang out followed by laughter.

The girl twin had obviously beaten the guy and was laughing as chess pieces orbited around them, each shrouded in purplish energy. She turned and I got a good look at her piercing lavender eyes and a shock at how young she and her brother were, the duo couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen.

"Now that that's over with, I guess we'll finish with our introductions. I'm Katelyn Daniels and this sore loser is my brother Wren. We came here on our own free will after I fell through the floor and he blew up the fridge."

I glanced at Wren, who just shrugged. I propped myself up on one arm and pointed at him saying, "He doesn't talk much, does he?"

The words, directed at Katelyn, elicited a laugh from her and yet another shrug and a grin from Wren.

Suddenly I felt a pressure like a headache then," I don't use words often, William. This is far easier."

I was startled as the words echoed in my head, "So you're a telepath and can blow stuff up, quite the combo."

That actually got a laugh out of the boy. "Ash over there practically gave us your life story and all you've got to know about her is she melted into a puddle during class one day."

This sent Katelyn into a fit of giggles and caused Ashley to melt a bit farther into the jar before pulling herself back together.

Suddenly it clicked, "Hang on… I remember you now!"

I turned to Ashley as the memories came rushing back. "Your mom and dad worked with my dad when I was little!"

Images of a man and woman, both with dark hair and kind features popped into my head, around our old kitchen table, working on projects at a museum. They all involved my dad.

I shook my head, sending the flashback back into my mindscape for later. Hey at least some stuff was coming back.

As we all settled in for bed, I saw a flickering in the sky but my already drowsy mind put no thought to the events above.

Outside, however, it was a far different story. Amidst the snow, wind, and bolts of lightning, two shining dots, red and yellow, seemed to dance, darting into each other with an orange flash only to ricochet off and repeat the process. On closer inspection, it was clear that the "dots" were two figures, one garbed in a menacing black cloak, the other in a navy slim line and grey armor. This went on until the clock tower on the old cathedral tolled, signaling midnight.

The duo hovered, in a standoff as snow and sleet fell past. Glowing eyes, masked and bare, yellow and red, stared each other down as the two clashed yet again, only for the one in blue to plummet after a bolt of energy blasted him down several hundred feet to the level of a skyscraper. The cloaked figure power dived after him, appearing like a black bullet trailing red fire.

Reaching out, the armored figure grasped an antenna on a nearby building, wrenching the 30 foot mass of steel clear off and swung at his incoming opponent. Already flying at an incredible speed, the cloaked man could do little and eyes in a pale face grew wide as he was struck like a home run in a baseball game, and sent soaring into the nearby mountain.

Exhausted, the man let the antenna, turned-bat drop, before flying off at supersonic speeds after his foe. Down below, the antenna smashed into a power station, sending a surge of power and darkness throughout the city.

Back inside the room in Blackthorn Multinational, the group had partially drifted off to sleep only to be jolted awake by a loud crash followed by a deeper darkness than before. Crashes and thuds echoed around the room as its occupants got out of bed only to walk into something.

"Enough!" And a wave of lavender light flew across the room, sticking to every surface. The voice and light stemmed from Katelyn, who addressed the group, "We need to stay calm, or else we're just going to end up breaking everything in our rush to get-"

Deep below, a rumble came through the ground. Lights flickered to life only to die again and shouting became evident from elsewhere in the complex. A red light started blinking over the door and a distant alarm could be heard. I turned to the tank that held Ashley, a question at my lips, only for the floor to practically erupt. I was thrown across the room into Kyle as the sounds of crashing metal and breaking glass left a ringing in my ears. Suddenly, all was calm, and I looked to see a huge hole where my bed had been. The bed was actually embedded in the roof and everything else was scattered across the room.

I pulled myself up on newly freed hands to see the others in similar shape. Ashley was slowly pulling herself together (literally) after her tank shattered. Julia was getting to her feet behind a knocked over table, and Kyle stood behind me, using my shoulder as a temp crutch. The twins hovered near the door, Wren clutching his shoulder but otherwise all right. Somehow all of us were relatively unscathed. Well actually Ashley was a puddle but that's not important.

A glowing green arm, long, clawed, and crackling with electricity, reached out of the hole where my bed was. It was followed by another, and another, and another, before the head and body appeared. Four jagged red eyes glared at all of us. Its hair buzzed with electricity and stuck out backwards like a spike. The arms were too long and legs to short as the creature hauled itself into the room, standing on its fists like a gorilla. Then it spoke.

"Seven years in that hell hole and the first thing I see is food, praise the heavens!" Its menacing voice buzzed and crackled like a bolt of lightning learned to talk.

It roared, jaw unhinging and spikes erupted from its body. Katelyn and Julia shrieked and the creature lunged forward only to trip in semi-liquid Ashley, scattering her again. It pulled itself up only to have an end table crash into its face.

Kyle went to town, smashing anything he could lay his hands on into the things face. Each blow got stronger and each item got heavier until he ripped a girder out of the shattered ceiling and knocked the creature clear across the room, through the locked door, and into the wall of the hallway which partial collapsed on it.

I think we all just stared as Kyle cracked his knuckles, "Think there are more? That was kind of fun!" As if in answer, an ear splitting shriek rang out from down the hall.

"Take that as a yes, Kyle. Let's see what we can do!" I grabbed a length of pipe from the rubble and chased after the guy, his previous quarry forgotten, still embedded in the wall.

Red emergency lights flickered in the hallway, really setting the mood for what could've been an action movie if I wasn't living it. We made our way through the hallways, Kyle leading and Ashley, having finally pulled herself together, bringing up the rear.

We rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a man. He was covered in metal armor and the shattered remains of handcuffs were still clasped on his wrists. Electric blue eyes scowled out from under his shaggy brown hair.

He sighed," Well shit."

His eyes flared, glowing with blue fire as blasts of the same stuff shot from his hands, knocking Kyle and I into a wall.

"Ow! Dang, Will, this guy packs a punch!" He heaved himself out of the metal siding and pulled me up," Think you can do that ice thing again?"

With that, he lept back into the fight, the guy managing to hold his own, even landing some powerful blows in return. I looked down at my hands, ice crystals still danced across my fingers and I looked at our mystery assailant. Back and forth, back and forth until I made a decision.

I reached out, pointing my palm at him and sort of just... Pushed. A beam of blue energy shot from my hand, striking him in the chest and knocking him back as ice grew over him before completely covering him, head to toe. The ice was quickly shattered by a wave of fire but before he could retaliate, two beams of purple energy collided with his head, knocking him out.

I'd forgotten about the twins. Katelyn flew over to the man and placed a finger on his temple, "He'll be out for a few hours. We should see if there are any more like him and that thing back in our room are roaming the halls. I'm pretty sure we don't want them running loose in the city! And seriously guys, you're not flying solo here, let us help!"

Kyle and I glanced at each other.

"Fair enough."

We found nine. And most weren't even close to human. On a deep floor of the building, we finally downed the most recent one, a spiky red creature that was a bit more beast than person as its electric form had a tail, claws, and a head that looked like it belonged on some sort of vampire mask. A super powered punch to the head sent it reeling and a blast of ice from Julia and me froze it to the wall.

We stopped and leaned against the wall, catching our breath in the dim light. Then I heard it, a distant shouting, someone with a very deep voice was yelling but the words were indecipherable, and then came the scream.

I jumped to my feet along with the others and ran down the hall where we came to a huge metal door. The edges were melted into the walls and some still glowed with inner heat. Then an idea struck me.

I looked at the twins, "How good are you two with your telekinesis?"

They looked at each other and you could almost hear the silent words passing between them.

Katelyn as usual played spokesperson, "That depends on what you're thinking. What's your plan?"

"Can you vibrate the metal until it's hot?"

They blinked, "Uh probably, but then what?"

I filled my hand with a ball of the icy energy I was getting to control. "Then I freeze it and Kyle smashes the thing to bits. Metal becomes brittle if it's rapidly heated and cooled. Add some brute force and bam! We've got an entrance!"

The twins' eyes lit up and a glow traveled over the door's surface followed by a faint buzzing sound. The sound suddenly increased to the point where it made the hall vibrate.

The metal began to flow a dull orange so I looked at Julia, "Ready?"

She nodded and I fired a blast of ice at the door, another followed and the door changed back to its original grey albeit flakier. I nodded at Kyle who got a running start and slammed into the door.

The metal shattered and flew inwards in huge pieces which scattered everywhere across a hangar of sorts. Massive doors shielded the entrance and several VTOL helicopters and transports were parked around on landing pads. It was what was right in front of us though that really drew our attention.

A ten foot tall figure stood facing a crowd of workers. His skin was made of orange-ish electricity with strands of black creating almost muscle and bone like patterns. He turned and I stopped dead. A skull-like head sat perched atop its wide shoulders. A jagged gash created the illusion of dagger-like teeth and eyes that glowed like a desert sun. Energy arced from point to point over its body, never the same place twice but always moving. Overall this being gave off a feeling of malice like no other.

Then it spoke in a voice that belonged to a demon, "I see you've defeated my weaker creations. Where if I were in better shape, I would see to your demise but now is not the time. I bid you adieu, 'heroes'."

A classic evil laugh rang out and he just... exploded. Energy shot in all directions, striking people, the helicopters, but the majority shot towards the door, burning through in seconds with a surge of cold air. Even as he vanished, you could still hear that menacing laugh as if he'd left his voice behind.

Snapping out of our stupor, we ran down to the crowd of workers, most of whom had been knocked flat and we're getting to their feet, hair sticking up everywhere and many with burns on their exposed skin. Outside, as a different light was filling the skies, I turned to the others and almost whispered.

"What did we just get ourselves into?"


End file.
